1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a sound processing technique, in particular, to a beat enhancement device, a sound output device, and an electronic apparatus, which perform predetermined processing on a sound signal, such as music, and output the processed signal, and further to a beat outputting method which is applied to the devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Because of the technical background in which the technology of coding sound data has been developed, memory devices have been larger in capacity and smaller in size, and ways of acquiring data have diversified or the like, sound data are now produced in diversified environments, which enable people to easily enjoy sense of being there with a 5.1 channel surround system, or enjoy many types of music wherever you want by storing a large amount of data in a mobile audio player.
Similarly, the technology in which certain types of processing are performed on music which are once recorded or performed has been used widely, in addition to the technology which enables people to listen to music contents acquired in a non-interactive manner. For example, sound quality is improved by performing various processings on music using sound-processing software such as equalizers. A completely different music is created by remixing multiple pieces of music. With the technology, ways of enjoying music are increasingly diversified.
Sound quality adjustment of a sound signal is generally carried out by changing the frequency characteristic of a sound. For example, a low frequency sound is enhanced so that a deeper sound or a more powerful sound can be heard. That is, enhancement or extraction of components included in a sound signal is often done for individual frequency bands. On the other hand, music genres have currently diversified from grand classical music or soundtracks to hip-hop music or dance music in which the rhythm is important, and features each music genre has are greatly different from one another.
Naturally, music with different features have different components desired to be enhanced or extracted. In some music, processing on a component for a individual frequency band sometimes offers an adverse effect to make the quality worse, or can hardly acquire the expected effect.